Dancing to the Same Tune? EU and US Approaches to Standards Setting in the Global Digital Sector

This is an open-access article.

As both the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) construct their approaches to governing the digital economy in a global context, the role and influence of international organisations are being questioned. Specifically, the EU, traditionally a champion of multilateral regimes, has embarked on a strategy that tends toward a ‘digital sovereignty’ approach. However, the EU’s sovereigntist approach relies upon the power of multilateral regimes to ensure ‘managed interdependence’. This article focuses on the differences between the EU and the US regarding global standardisation processes and bodies. It argues that across the Atlantic, there is political agreement on how to manage standards development, but that policies to achieve this often diverge. This article focuses on some of the efforts of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council working group on standardization to show how this agreement on politics, but not policies, has emerged.